the other Allen & Gates & friends

2010 wrapup and on hiatus for 2011

2011-07-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

Just in case anyone is wondering, I'm taking a break for 2011. Need to finish getting my house in order and I'd also like the chance to do some different things (like hike) with friends. I believe Deb is still participating; but I'll let her speak/post for herself.

Danskin 2010 was fun, and so was Trek, even though Trek was a little cold and wet. You never know with those two. Even though Danskin is in August and Trek is in September, either one can be hot or rainy. In both cases, my time was actually pretty reasonable. That was a nice surprise. It just goes to show how much "base" stays from year to year thanks to Lisa's training. I will post some Danskin 2010 photos here when I get a chance.

We're still here

2010-08-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

Just in case anyone is wondering - yes "the other Allen & Gates" are going to ride again in 2010. Sorry for not posting this year. Those of you who we talk to regularly know why... and also know that it is a miracle that we are going to participate in the Seattle Danskin triathlon next weekend, because we didn't start attending the training sessions until over half way through the program, and have only been doing about half of the recommended workouts each week, so we are only about 1/4 trained. The good news is that we seem to have some muscle memory, and have built up enough technique in past years that we can draw on to get us through this.

I wish I had some photos of Trixie to share with you. Trixie is the manikin that our coach dresses up each week as a gag-inspiration. Coach Lisa has been particularly creative this year. One of the highlights was a hunting outfit (complete with a hip hugging bullet belt) with fishnet stockings on the week that all the deer antlers disappeared from alongside the road on our bike training course.

Today was the practice triathlon, which is a tradition one week before the actual event. We swam, biked, and walked/ran, just as if we were doing the Danskin, but in a calmer atmosphere, closer to home, at Wildcat Lake instead of Lake Washington. The swim distance was the same 1/2 mile but the bike and run distances were easier (only about 67% of next week's event). This is taper down week. I didn't break any speed records today, and won't break any next week either, but I feel comfortable that I can complete the race and enjoy it.

There is one thing important thing that I need to decide between now and next week, and that is whether to try to ride up the narrow steep "S" shaped access road to the bridge between Seattle and Mercer Island, or whether to walk my bike up. I'm leaning towards walking up, but am not sure my pride will let me. This would be the first time I've done that. I think I can ride up it, but it would not be pretty and I am concerned that if I have to abort the ride part way up, that I'll mess up the faster riders behind me. This is the one and only semi-dangerous portion of the Danskin course. It would be less of a concern if the Danskin was more like the Trek (i.e. fewer participants = less of a zoo).

Deb and I are also doing the Trek tri in September. So the Danskin will be a sort of warm up for the Trek. These events are really fun!

Outlook for 2010

2010-03-14T00:52:00.000-08:00

As usual, I didn't post much once summer was over. But now sunny days are ahead.

The Gates half of the other Allen and Gates will be competing in the Seattle Rainman Triathlon in about a week. She's been trying to get me to join her, but my personal life is just too messy and although I do have access to an indoor pool and an indoor bike, I just haven't had a chance to do much more than walk since last fall, so Deb is going to have to do that event on her own.

This will be Deb's second Seattle Rainman Tri. It's a really cool little event. She said she liked it a lot. I've never done it, but hopefully I'll be able to join her next year. Since the event occurs early in the season and the distances are a lot shorter than even the easy beginner-sprint distance tris (like the Danskin and the Trek), it's a nice stepping stone event.

Two of the three legs are inside. Since the swim portion is in a heated pool, you don't even have to wear a wetsuit. Last year Deb said she thought the bike leg would be a piece of cake since it's on a trainer, but that it turned out to be harder than she thought... that it gave her newly found respect for those indoor trainers.

Last year the Rainman lived up to it's name. They were so soaked on the walk/run around Greenlake that Deb said even the photographers gave up and packed it in. I know our trees need nice long cool drinks, but let's hope they have better weather this year.

From the Worst of Times to the Best of Times

2009-09-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

While the Gates half of the "other Allen & Gates" was playing on the East Coast (visiting family and going to the theatre in NY City) after successfully completing the New York Metro Danskin (see the entry on the New Jersey Danskin), the Allen half enjoyed a spectacular day at the very first Seattle Trek Triathlon (Sept 20, 2009).

I went from my worst race ever (the Seattle Danskin in August 2009) to my best race ever... this is in respect to both experience and finishing time... my total time for the 2009 Danskin was about 2 hrs 42 minutes; for the 2009 Trek, it was approx. 2 hrs 20 minutes, which was a few seconds faster than my 2008 time. I thought there was a typo when I read it When I analyze the times, the only thing I seem to be getting better at is the transations - ha!

Yesterday was AWESOME. It is so true that you need to get back on the horse after you've been thrown off. I had such a hard time in the swim leg of the Danskin that I was frankly a little scared even though the farmer-john wetsuit I wear has the effect of making me float like a cork (and the course is lined with swim support).

- more later - have to catch up and frankly, I'm moving a wee bit slow today... :)

ps, if you want to see more photos, use this link... they got some pretty good ones :) http://www.brightroom.com/view_user_event.asp?EVENTID=49438&PWD=&BIB=3185

.................Danskin Triathlon Series..................Trek Tri
.................2007..........2008..........2009..........2009
swim.............00:24:12*.....0:34:22.......00:39:35......00:34:24
swim rank........3104 of 3495..3444 of 3710..3554 of 3710..801 of 821
transition.......00:14:51......0:09:59.......00:08:50......00:07:07
bike.............00:55:40......0:48:32.......01:00:14......00:54:43
bike rank........2765..........2955..........3277..........707
bike mph.........13.3..........14.8..........11.9..........13:1
transition.......00:04:57......0:03:20.......00:04:29......00:02:10
run/walk.........00:43:41......0:44:08.......00:49:30......00:41:52
run/walk rank....2856..........3089..........3341..........696
pace.............00:14:05......0:14:14.......00:15:58......00:13:30
final............2:23:24.......2:20:34.......02:42:39......02:20:18
overall rank.....3066 of 3495..3251 of 3710..3471 of 3710..766 of 821
class rank.......222 of 259....261 of 290....61 of 68......67 of 72

* the 2007 swim course was not the full 1/2 mile

As you can tell from my times above, I'm not exactly speedy Gonzoles, but I have a lot of fun, and preparing for the event keeps me motived to stay fit.

New Jersey Danskin

2009-09-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

We're branching out! (or at least Deb is). The Gates half of the "other Allen & Gates" traveled to Sandy Hook, New Jersey to compete as part of a family relay team in the New York Metro Danskin on September 13, 2009.

The Family relay team came within 3 minutes of taking first place in the survivor relay team category - whoo hoo! This is especially impressive when you consider that the team that did take first place consisted of three 20-somethings; and Deb, her mom, and her cousin, are far from 20 years old :).

Photos, results, and reflections to be posted when there is a little more time.

We Completed the 2009 Danskin

2009-08-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it -- both Deb and I completed the 2009 Seattle Women's Danskin Triathlon... although Jean, my swim angel had her doubts at times (she did a good job of masking them and staying positive but I could tell that she was wondering if I belonged out there)... (Yep, I wimped out and specifically asked for an angel and was Very Glad I did - I must have swallowed a lot of water because 36 hours later, I am only now starting to breath normally). Thank You Jean for making it possible to do this event this year... it is one of the ways I convince myself that I am still healthy and that the cancer is not back.

All in all, it was a very positive experience. The comradry and energy at these events is inspiring. I love everyone in the TriBabe and Team Survivor groups, especially our TriTurtle Coach Lisa Ballou and our TSNW mentors Monica and Coach Kim. And this was an inspiration for being better prepared for next time :).

Deb did very well and would have done better than last year if she hadn't lolly dollied around on her first transition. Since she didn't train much this year either, this just shows what a natural athlete she is.

I didn't do as bad as I thought I would - I was about 20 minutes slower than last year and took twice as long as the award winners, but I wasn't the slowest one by far, and did not take 3 hours as feared.

Times and photos will be posted when photos are available. We got really nice hunking color medals (it was Danskin's 20th anniversay). However, we sorely missed Sally Edwards and the original Danskin gang. It's just not the same. I'm signed up for Sally's Trek Tri in Sept. although I'm going to have to dig deep to do it.

We Ride Again

2009-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

I've just been too busy to post blog entries - sorry -- those of you that know me well know that I have a messy personal life... I have almost been too busy to work out and prep for Danskin 2009... but both Deb and I completed the "dress rehearsal" tri last Satuday so it looks like "the other Allen & Gates" will ride again this coming Sunday.

The "dress rehearsal" was a 1/2 mile swim (the same as next week, except at Wildcat Lake instead of Lake Washington), a 9-10 mile bike (instead of 12-13) and a 2 mile walk/run (instead of 3). Coach Lisa believes in tapering down.

As usual, Deb finished each leg first, and was nice enough to wait for so that we at least started out together. Next Sunday she'll probably finish in under 2 hours, and this time I might just take 3+ (instead of 2.5-).

more later...

SheROX registration definitely does NOT Rock!

2009-02-10T19:04:00.000-08:00

Registration for the 2009 Seattle Danskin Triathlon, now known known as the SheROX Tri Series (more on that later) opened today... and what a fiasco! It took Deb about an hour to get registered. It took me about an hour and a half... and we were the lucky ones. Our terrific TriTurtle Lisa Ballou was at the computer, tri, tri, and tri'ing again from 7am this morning until 5:07 tonight, until she finally got through.

Email today has been pretty interesting as tri-babes check in to let us know that they're in or are still trying. Several of their comments were pretty clever. I got a big kick out of Rhonda Stephens' email which pointed out that it took her 4 hours longer to register than it will take her to do the tri and she wanted to know if she got a shirt just for registering!

I sure hope today was a function of the registration service they are using and not the Danskin Tri team itself because there is a completely a new crew running the Danskin Tri.

There is a new sprint distance women's Tri series in town, and I'm not saying that because the Danskin Tri's crew has changed.... I'm referring to the Trek Tri...

Sally Edwards came to the Team Survivor Northwest annual retreat last weekend (Feb 6-8) at Fort Worden, and while she was here she talked about the new Trek Tri, which in many ways is the old Danskin Tri except with a new name. Sally told us that pretty much everyone who was running the Danskin Tri series that we are familiar with has quit and is now working for the Trek Tri. This includes Maggie Sullivan (the organizer and one of the co-founders of Team Survivor national)and the Swim Angels plus plus plus. The Trek tri is going to give Team Survivor national 10% of their proceeds off the top (before expenses). She went on to explain that this is very good for Team Survivor because often when an event pledges to give a certain percentage of their proceeds to a charity, that percentage is calculated based upon the net, which often means that the charity gets very little, if anything.

Deb and I have signed up for 3 Triathlons for 2009 so far. She's also signed up for the Lance Armstrong ride in Seattle in June, and a Sarcoma fundraising ride in Portland, which she tried to interest me in, but I need to leave time open to get to know my new nephew Adrian.

The first Tri we're doing is the Seattle Rainman Triathlon, on March 1st, in Greenlake (just north of Seattle). It's actually a pretty funny event in some ways because 2 of the 3 events are indoors. We swim in a pool, bike on a stationary trainer which they provide in the transition area, and then do a lap outside around the lake. As they say, 2 out of 3 isn't bad! Fortunately 2 out of 3 of the distances are also a lot shorter than the Danskin because, no, I have NOT stayed in great shape over the winter, and I'm a little freaked out about it because I haven't had time for regular workouts recently either. Deb, of course, could do it sleep walking. She's very inspirational.

The second Tri will be the Seattle Women's Trek Tri on July 5th. That gives me 3 full months to work up to it and to get down to San Jose to meet Adrian. Racking our bikes on July 4th is going to be an interesting way to spend the holiday, but oh well. Hopefully Lake Washington won't be too cold. Team Survivor Northwest is participating in this event officially. Although a lot of TriBabes will participate, including our TriTurtle Lisa, the Tri Babes's "official" event will be the Danskin... which is another reason Deb and I are grateful to be on two teams.

The Seattle Danskin Tri will be around it's usual time, August 16th.

Deb is also doing the New York Metro Danskin Tri, in Sandy Hook New Jersey, as part of a three generation family relay team on September 13th.

Hang on for the ride - it's going to be an interesting summer!

2008 Danskin Results

2008-08-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Yahoo!! -- both Deb and I were among the thousands of awesome women who completed the 2008 Seattle Danskin Spring Distance Triathlon today.

Before I talk about us, let's take a moment to congratulate Lisa Ballou and the Kitsap Tri Babe team! Every single Tri Babe who started the Danskin completed it! And we were the largest group there. We had 115 finishers, which means that one out of every 32 Danskin finishers was a Tri Babe. Plus we had many Tri Babes who came in top 3 of their age class! Pam Kiesel, my mentor from last year (and another Team Survivor Northwest member) was among those.

It was a great day, except for missing Karen. She was in our thoughts particularly often this weekend. Friday night, while sitting in the hotel in about the same spot that we all sat in for dinner the night before last year's tri, I even tried to talk to her just in case her spirit was hovering around (just so you don't think I'm completely looney, if she answered I couldn't tell).

Once again, we are SO Grateful for all the support we have received both while training with the Kitsap Tri Babes and at the Danskin Triathlon event. Deb and I are lucky because we get to belong to two teams, both the Kitsap Tri Babes and Team Survivor Northwest. Incredible numbers of people are extremely generous with their time, and I hope they all know that we appreciate them very, very much.

Sally Edwards gave every one of us a high-5 as we went into the water. And whoever is the next-to-last finisher at the Danskin gets a special honor because they are accompanied by Sally, who always makes sure she finishes last. I feel so blessed to be in the company of such considerate and inspiring women.

I'm particularly grateful for the swim angels. Deb is very comfortable in the water, but although I'm not afraid of drowning, I'm not, and the fact that these ladies are out there looking out for us makes the swim course so much easier and less stressful. Coach Kim, from Team Survivor was there as we got out of the water and gave us encouragement as we moved into our transition. Thank You Coach Kim.

Tri-turtle Coach Lisa Bee set up a station near the finish line and cheered on all the tri-babes as they came close to the end. After doing the whole tri herself, she then kept track of every one of us and made sure we were OK. Like Coach Kim, Coach Lisa is an Ironwoman.

During our Saturday "brick" training sessions in SeaBeck, husbands and friends of Tri Babes help watch out for traffic in the places where we cross roads, and help make sure we don't get lost. They also cruise the course and help us with any issues we might have like flat tires, or if our bike chain comes off (and mine did this year). At the Danskin, REI provides bike support, and they are all over the course helping out. Deb actually stopped during the bike course to take off her jacket and said there were four people there almost instantly making sure she was ok. They helped her peel out of her jacket and stuffed it in her pack for her so she could get along on her way.

On the run course during our bricks, more Kitsap Tri Babe supporters help make sure we don't get lost, and help look after us in case one of us has a problem. The run course on the Danskin is also well manned with volunteers who were handing out water. Monica, from Team Survivor, stationed herself along the "big hill" towards the end near the drummers and took the time to greet TSNW members as they came up the hill and gave us a little extra energy. Thank You Monica!

So, what were our times? Interestingly they were about the same as last year. The swim leg of the course was a little longer so that means we did improve a little. Right before the event Tri Turtle Coach Lisa warned all the Kitsap Tri Babe Vets not to be suprised if they actually take longer to complete their 2nd or 3rd triathlon than on their first time. Her logic for that is that as a vet, you know that you can skip a few training sessions and still complete the course, and that was certainly true for both of us; neither one of us trained as hard this year as last. So I think we both were happily surprised that we did as well as we did.

Just like last year, this blog doesn't like "tables" so please scroll down for the numbers...

2008	Deb	Diane
bib	577	581
swim	0:22:16	0:34:22
swim rank	1945	3444
transition	0:08:47	0:09:59
bike	0:44:28	0:48:32
bike rank	2330	2955
bike mph	16.1	14.8
transition	0:07:06	0:03:20
run/walk	0:33:00	0:44:08
run/walk rank	1584	3089
pace	0:10:38	0:14:14
final	01:55:38	2:20:34
overall rank	2325	3251 of 3710
class rank	174	261 of 290
2007
final	1:55:48	2:23:24

I haven't analyzed our times, but I'm guessing that the slight improvement was mostly due to shorter transition times. If you want to compare the individual scores for 2007 and 2008, see 2007 Seattle Danskin Results (remember that the 2007 swim was about a third of a mile instead of a half, and that Deb lost a little time this year on the bike leg when she stopped to take off her jacket).

Yep, I have lots of room for improvement, but at least I wasn't last! (although the woman who was is actively going through cancer treatment - imagine!... she was one of the early starters so she was out on the course for hours - she has incredible courage) This will give me some fitness goals for next year. I hope you don't mind if I critique my performance. Don't take this wrong - I'm not apologizing for my performance in any manner. I've very proud to have completed the event. But I think I'm allowed to note where I can do better. I'm afraid I "wimped out" and did the backstroke again even though I am finally doing laps of freestroke in the pool, and did a combination of backstroke and crawl/freestroke for part of last Tuesday's Wildcat Lake final swim practice. Lake Washington was kinda choppy, and the backstroke was what I felt comfortable doing. I also need to religiously do the anti-shin split exercises that Sym (our Monday "active women/healthy women" instructor) shared with me.

If you're not familar with triathlons, there are 4 basic types: sprint, olympic, half-ironman, and ironman. Distances vary a little within each category, and so does the level of difficulty. For the Danskin sprint distance triathlon, the course was .75k swim, 20k bike, and 5k run walk. In miles, this is approx. 1/2-, 12+, 3+. The Tri Turtle sprint distance triathlon that is coming up in early September will be a full half mile swim, 15 miles on the bike (with more hills) and a very similar 3.2 mile run (or walk/trot if you're marshmallow Diane).

This year the elites finished the Danskin course in about 1:10+. Tri Turtle Coach Lisa and Tri Babe Shari finished it in under an hour and fourty minutes.

The medals we received this year are a little different - square instead of round.

Kitsap Tri Babes ROCK !

2008-08-14T13:07:00.001-07:00

Howdy -- it's Danskin Tri 2008 minus 3 ... thought I'd take a break from packing and share this link with you: http://www.betterhealthandliving.com/articles/tri_babes_get_going/ . It's an article about the group Deb and I train with, the Kitsap Tri Babes and our incredible (and incredibly funny) leader: Lisa Ballou

Thanks to everyone who has sent us good luck messages - talk to you after the race - Diane

Busy Busy Busy !

2008-07-29T00:56:00.001-07:00

Yep I've been a slacker and haven't kept up this blog this year. Sorry. I've been so busy doing things that it's been hard to find time to write. Here's some catchup....

In May I was a pair of legs in the AAUW centipede in the Rhody Run again this year. This was the 30th anniversary of the Rhody Run so we received particularly good t-shirts ... long sleeve ones - and that's a big deal up here in the Northwest because it means we can wear them all year long. Our time for the race was a few minutes better than last year despite not having the two best runners in the AAUW Port Townsend branch on our team this year, but that may have been due to the fact that we rotated positions and the "legs" which finished first may have started in the back. I have a good photo to post, and will add it to this entry when I have time.

Deb participated in the Lance Armstrong ride in Portland in June. She did 70 miles! What a woman! I'm still waiting for a photo. Normally you have to raise a lot of money for cancer research to ride in the Armstrong rides, but Team Survivor Northwest was adopted by Starbucks and they raised the money so "all" the TSNW team had to do was train. Here's a blog that talks more about the event: http://blog.race4areason.org/blog/

Last week Deb and I were both "honored" with Le Maillot Rose - an award our Tri-Turtle Lisa gives out to the final finishers in the brick. Yep, we were last. Hard to believe about a pair of vets. My chain on my bicycle came off when I was downshifting. I spent a while messing with it, and Deb was a friend and stuck with me. It was the first time that has happened and it was a good place for it because there was lots of support, which I really appreciate it. It was a little embarrasing to get these special pretty pink t-shirts (which we are supposed to wear to the brick next week), but I'm not sorry. They're hilarious and I'll enjoy wearing mine later because instead of "tri babe" on it, it says "tri GODDESS". On the back, in big letters, it says "It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop" (attributed to Confucious). It was also pretty funny how Lisa tried to tell us that if we didn't like getting the shirts that we would make her feel bad because she finished last at Ironman Switzerland a few weeks ago. That was an Ironman for Pete's sake - LOL

The Seattle Danskin Tri is now only a couple weeks away - August 17th -- only one more brick and the practice tri and then we can sleep in on Saturday mornings again if we want to - yeah! Which we probably won't do, because I think we both want to do the Tri Turtle Tri a few weeks later and that's a little longer swim and a much hillier bike ride...

more later (I promise) -- till then...

Allen and Gates Ride Again!

2008-05-08T23:31:00.001-07:00

Believe it or not, it still feels like winter here most of the time, but we've been busy making plans for the summer anyhow.

Our first event was the Northwest Dragon Slayer, last Saturday. This event benefits Sarcoma research. Do you know what a sarcoma is? Probably not. Check out the link to learn.

We're also doing the Seattle Danskin triathlon again in August. There is a funny story about this. We both almost missed out on getting registered. The event filled up in record time and registration closed before 11am the same day it opened. There were a lot of unhappy potential triathletes that day.

But fortunately for us, a couple weeks before registration opened, while researching the potential of participating in one of the Danskin tris which is held back east, Deb observed that their headquarters are in New York. So she speculated that when they said they'd open registration at midnight, that they didn't mean midnight Seattle time.

Deb was right, and just like last year, if we weren't a team, we both probably would have missed out. To make a long story short, we both got busy and forgot, but she reminded me via a related voice message on my office line and thus when I logged on and found out she was right, I called reminded her so that when she got back from the city late that night, she registered before going to be.

Sunday we went on our first bike ride of the year. This was a Team Survivor outing led by Annelise Digiacomo (Infitness Training and Coaching) and Coach Kim Brasfield, with help from Analese's husband and some of her friends. It is so nice of them to give us these opportunities to get out and become more confident with athletic activities.

Sunday's ride was an 18 mile round trip on the Cedar Creek trail in the Maple Creek area, which is a rural area southeast of Seattle. It was a pretty area, with nice trees and some interesting bridges. It was fun to look at the river on the north side of the trail, and it was easy to ignore the highway on the south side of the trail because most of the way there was at least a small greenbelt buffer. The trail is paved and pretty flat. It has some gradual slopes, but we never needed to get out of our middle gears.

But still, 18 miles was a long ways for me, so this was great for building up saddle time. This was easy for Deb, she has a lot more free time that I do and she routinely went 50 miles or more with a friend in hilly SeaBeck last year. SeaBeck is also where I trained last year, so with a background of being used to climbing hills, even though it had been 8 months since I'd been out on a bike (not counting the indoor trainer), I enjoyed it.

I have to confess, I had an accident about a third of the way through the ride. I fell while stopping (the whole group had stopped to regroup). The worst part was that I fell into another rider, Linda, and so she also fell. We both ended up bruised so not only do I feel stupid, but even though she was pretty forgiving, I feel terrible about it. I'm still not good at stopping and starting on this bike. I haven't gotten used to the fact that I can't touch the ground with both feet while sitting in the seat, like I used to when I was a kid. But at least by the end of the season last year, I'd gotten to the point where dismounting was graceful at least some of the time and I've never fallen before. What a wimp! I hope Linda felt better than I did the next day.

But Tuesday I went on a second ride anyhow - with the AAUW biking special interest group. They started riding this winter but I've been too busy with school and work to join them. But school is out until fall for me - yeah! We're still trying to think of a clever name for our group. 'Biker chicks' doesn't quite fit. If you have any good suggestions for something that goes with cyclists, especially if it's a literary reference, please feel free to make suggestions.

Fortunately the Tuesday bike ride was not eventful. We rode for almost 9 miles on the Larry Scott trail, which is in the Port Townsend area, much closer to home. There were a few rolly hills, which was nice, because I needed the practice with shifting gears. My goal is to be able to ride to our Monday exercise class, which would be a roughly 25 mile round trip, and would include some rolly hills. It would also include a couple stop signs, so I need to get comfortable stopping real quick unless I want a ticket because those stop signs are right in the middle of Port Hadlock where the police like to hang out. Considering that a 3 mile ride was a big deal last year, I'm pretty happy.

Hope you've enjoyed our first blog entry of 2008.

Call us Triathletes !!

2007-08-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

Woo Hoo - We Did It !! All three of us completed the 2007 Seattle Danskin Triathlon on Sunday August 19 so now you have to call us Triathlete Deb, Triathlete Karen, and Triathlete Diane! And we are all thinking of doing it again so I think I can speak for all of us when I say that it was a lot of fun (except for being drowned rats while packing up our stuff after the event because of the weather).

One of the really cool aspects of finishing my first Triathlon is that now I have my very own Triathlon shirt -- I volunteered as part of the kokua crew for the Kona Ironman for years so I have several souvenir t-shirts, a hat, and what not... and now when I wear those I can also say, "yeah" I was kokua crew in Kona in the 90s, but I'm also a triathlete! and I completed a sprint distance race AD. (We use BC and AD to mean "before cancer" and "after diagnosis"). BTW, our trainer, tri-turtle Lisa, says that not only are we allowed to wear our bright fuchsia shirts all week, and our medals, we are supposed to!

Thank You to all of our friends who have showered so many good wishes upon us - we really appreciate all the interest you've taken in our adventure and all the good vibes you've sent in our direction -- huge smiles and grateful hugs!!

To recap: the distances (per the medal we received afterwards, yep, we got nice medals) -- swim: .75k, bike: 20k, walk/run 5k ... those are approximates printed for the entire 2007 Danskin Tri series, which occurs in at least 5 cities across the U.S.

For the Seattle event, those distances, translated into miles, which most of you are probably more comfortable with were -- swim: 1/3 mile, bike 13.6? miles, walk/run 3.1 miles. The swim was originally supposed to be 1/2 mile but then was shortened to 1/3 mile so that the event would be over sooner so that the I-90 express lanes could be reopened to automobile traffic sooner. That may be have been because of the Mariners game and a messy I-5 construction project.

This was what is classified as a sprint distance triathlon. There are also Olympic distance events, half-Ironmans, and the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Ironman events. The sprint distance events are the introductory level. Danskin Tri was a nice place to start. Since it was all women, 99% of the participants were polite and helpful, and did nice things like attempt not to kick me when they swam past. Of course I racked next to one of the rude 1% - not only was she a space hog who didn't see a problem with having her gear spread out under my bike, when I came back from the bike leg, I found her wet suit hanging exactly where my bike needed to go... but - she also said that she didn't go through any of the training so hopefully she was thoughtless because she was nervous. Our fabulous leader, Lisa, the Tri-Babe's Tri-Turtle, also schooled us on proper behavior for safety and consideration during these events.

Yes we have maps of the courses and I'll see about posting those when I have some time. If you haven't heard from us, or haven't heard much, it isn't because we're hurting after the race, it's because there was so much to do - essentially we were gone all weekend - both beforehand to get ready and afterwards to unpack and dry out everything... plus catchup on chores, work, and/or family stuff.

Our results are below - for some reason this blogging program wants to put a lot of blank lines before the table, even though there is no code telling it to do that, so scroll down a little please.

	Deb	Karen	Diane
bib #:	48	56	47
overall rank:	2109	2284	3066 of 3495
class rank:	132	151	222 of 259
swim:	00:16:56	00:16:15	00:24:12
swim rank:	1545	1308	3104
transition 1:	00:08:30	00:09:10	00:14:51
bike:	00:50:34	00:47:10	00:55:40
bike rank:	2146	1556	2765
MPH:	14.7	15.7	13.3
transition 2:	00:06:53	00:08:07	00:04:57
run:	00:33:43	00:38:29	00:43:41
run rank:	1681	2408	2856
pace:	00:10:52	00:12:24	00:14:05
final:	01:55:48	01:59:13	02:23:24

As you can see, Deb and Karen made good time - they are both inspirational athletes! Plus, to appreciate how well they did, you should know that they didn't even go through a formal training program like I did. They are awesome women!

To help you get a feel for our finishing times: the top finishers' total time was about an hour and fifteen minutes, but I don't think they had as much fun as we did. I achieved my goal, which was to finish with a smile. In fact, my husband said I was one of the only ones he saw with a big smile when returning from the bike leg although I saw lots of smiles when I went through the photos on brightroom.com. I'm sure I probably could have done a little better if I had pushed myself harder. I did my best on the swim, but could have gone a lot faster on the bike and a little faster on the run, and could have shortened that first transition time. And of course I would have preferred to hang closer with my friends, and maybe even nip playfully at their heels a little, but overall, I'm not unhappy with my times. I really thought it was going to take me closer to 3 hours and I'm simply thrilled to have the experience to savor. I've set a nice comfortable baseline, and if I can learn to breath better so that I can also do the crawl in the swim and also get more comfortable running on my toes, I think that next year I should be able to reduce my time to under two hours and still have time to enjoy the event.

We started at the just delightful hour of 6:46 am. Those of you that know me, know that I'm a night owl. Deb doesn't get up early either, and even though Karen is used to getting up earlier than we are, I don't think she ever gets up at 4:30 by choice. We were in the 2nd wave, with green bathing caps, right behind the elites because of our status as first year participants and TSNW members. This gave us a little breathing room before the waves behind us started overtaking us... well, I should say "me" because Karen and Deb were long gone by the time I crawled out of the water. Notice Karen's swim ranking - she is in the top third - and notice that even though Deb was only fourty-one seconds behind her, there is a difference of over a hundred in their ranking. Interesting. Our swim started our wave only one minute after the elite wave, the rest of the swim waves started only 3-4 minutes apart. Next year we will be responsible for our own registration and will probably be in something like wave six, so we won't have to start until around 7:15, but will be closer to the middle of the pack.

The Seattle PI/Times has some photos http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/photos/. The swimmers with green caps may have been our wave, because that was our color. I don't see any of us in the photos though. There are a lot of Tri-Babes in pink shirts in the photos - that is the group I trained with.

The swim was in Lake Washington. We started from the boat launch in Genesee Park, swam a triangular course and walked back up a different boat ramp. Then we walked our bikes out of the racking area onto the street that runs around Lake Washington and headed north towards the floating bridge.

The bike course was mostly flat except for an interesting short, narrow & steep "S" curve up onto I-90 to the Express Lanes, and some gradual slopes at each end of the floating bridge. When I went up the "S" curved onramp, 70-80% of the women were walking their bikes. I was very proud to ride up the whole way even though one woman fell off her bike almost right in front of me. One of the many volunteers was really nice and helped catch her and move her out of the way. Thank You to Tri-Babe Coach Lisa, our Tri-Turtle and all those hills you made us ride during training! Deb and Karen both rode up that hill also. We Rock!!

Also notice Karen and Deb's bike times and ranking! They both made great time again. They were very close together (see Deb behind Karen in the photo of Karen on the bike). Karen was a little faster than Deb on the bike course; roughly 3 minutes - but look how many people separate them in the bike rankings! A 16 minute swim and a 47 minute bike must be the hot times, and my goal for next year (I'll have to learn to pedal faster while enjoying the view :)).

The course along I-90 was really neat - imagine riding your bike on an express lane! Plus the views were gorgeous even though the day was overcast and rainy. At that point it was only misting and raining a little. I feel for those women who had later start times because it probably poured buckets on them while they were on their bikes. We turned around about half way on Mercer Island, under one of the tunnels, and had a little wind against us on the way back. They made us dismount for the S curve descent. I'm still such a newbie that mounting and dismounting are still scary for me so I was particularly proud that not only didn't I fall, my dismount was even a little graceful, and there was a nice curb to help with the remount. This probably sounds pretty funny and wimpy coming from a "Triathlete" - ha! I guess it just goes to show how much of an achievement this was.

After reracking our bikes, we trotted off south towards Seward Park, turned around about Orcas Street, and headed back to Genesee Park. Notice that Deb's time was only 10 minutes per mile! There is one steep hill at the end, and there were two drummers set up there who were fabulous... their rhythm actually made it pleasant to trot up the hill. I've heard they are there every year... and that there is usually some naked guy standing there also, but he wasn't there this year, perhaps because of the weather.

I was almost to the finish line when I heard my mentor, Pam, yell out my name - what a rush! Thank You Pam! Lisa's husband, David, and some other Tri-Babe supporters were close to the finish line cheering everyone on. I tried to get over by them afterwards but couldn't figure out how to get there, so cheered from the other side before getting too cold and wet and packing it in. Tri-Babe supporter, Dane, Lisa's son, gave me my medal after I crossed the line. That was sooo cool. Terry was even at the finish line and I got a surprise hug.

About the time we finished, the light showers turned into a downpour, so gathering things up, and waiting for our rides to make their way to the pickup area was a little miserable, but we dealt with it. What an adventure!!

P.S. Go ahead and laugh at my run outfit -- it's not very well coordinated and I left on my glasses and my biking gloves, but hey, my transition time between the bike and the run was only 4 minutes (as opposed to 14 between the swim and bike)

and YES, we'll do it again!

--------------------------

A Sad Postscript

On October 19, 2007, Karen was overwhelmed by the cancer that had invaded her and passed over the rainbow bridge. We really thought that if anyone could beat this disease, it would be Karen. Karen was such a strong, wonderful woman. She was very other-oriented and touched many lives with her caring. She was a loving mother, a naturalist, a physical therapist, an artist, an avid gardener, and a gourmet cook, to name only a few of her many talents and diverse interests. At her celebration of life, her family summed up her philosophy as a parent, which was that she felt there were really only two important jobs: to give her children roots and to give them wings.

I Believe in Magic

by Karen Zischke, 2006

Magic is
.....Fairy dust
.....A twinkling in the eye
.....Falling in love

Magic is
.....The sun rising and setting each day
.....Green leaves unfurling in spring
.....Waves lapping the shore
.....A sparkling moonbeam on the water
.....A fairyland of moss carpeting the earth
.....Snowflakes gently falling from the sky

Karen, we love you and miss you.

We did it! (completed the practice tri)

2007-08-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

Whooya! Together we stand! Between Karen, Deb, and I, that old expression which I can't remember exactly, but goes something like the "sum of the whole is greater than the parts" is so true. All three of us completed Team Survivor Northwest (TSNW)'s practice triathlon last Sunday. We did a 1/2 mile swim, a 14 mile bike, and a 3 mile run/walk. And didn't die afterwards :) Karen and I even went shopping (at REI of course ;)).

There were actually two practice tri's last weekend - one on Saturday with the Kitsap Tri-Babe group that I've been training with and another on Sunday with TSNW. I was going to go to both. No I'm not crazy.

Lisa's Tri-Babe group is who I've done all my training with, and her plans are so well thought out that was a must-attend.

The primary value of the TSNW practice tri was that it was almost exactly in the same location as the event will be next week, and going over to the city afforded us a chance to check out the hotel ahead of time along with the driving route. We weren't sure we were going to "do" that one but we wanted to at least go through the transitions and learn the territory.

As luck have it, I walked too close to a piece of furniture last Monday and did something very, very bad to one of my little toes. I don't know whether it is broken or just badly sprained, but it is still swollen despite eating arnica montana for a couple days. So since I didn't get to work out at all last week except for a session in the pool, there was no way last weekend was going to go as previously planned.

Since Karen and I had plans for Sunday, and we needed to check the hotels to make our final choice, skipping the Tri-Babe practice tri on Saturday gave the toe one more day to heal before attempting to wear shoes. I really think I could have skipped Sunday's practice tri also if I hadn't already made plans with Karen. Deb says she probably wouldn't have gotten up and made the 2-3 hour trip to the city either without us. The city is, well, a city. Lots of traffic, and we're spoiled and not used to it.

First we did a full 1/2 mile swim, which is longer than the 1/3 mile swim for the competition next week... and I'm glad because I ended up doing the backstroke for most of it. I'm afraid I did longer than a half mile too. Thank You to the volunteer guy in a kayak who was nice enough to stop me from heading straight out to the middle of Lake Washington. One of my arms is stronger than the other and I guess I got real confident on the 2nd lap since I had made a beeline for the buoy on the first lap. Coach Lisa says that at the event that the lifeguards get cuter the further out in the lake that you go. We've speculated that is a planned incentive to keep us trucking along.

Deb and Karen both did the crawl and the breast stroke so were done and had time for a break before I even got out of the water. Karen doesn't think she is that fit, but she is, and she is very inspiring. Deb too. Deb swam competitively when she was younger and won races with the breast stroke so she is real comfortable with it even though even she commented that wearing a wet suit changes your buoyancy and makes the kick "interesting". I'm glad not to be the only one making that observation. Next year's goal for me is to get my breathing down so I can do the crawl most of the way. I go so, so much faster with less effort in the pool with the free stroke/crawl, but can't keep it up since breathing is one of those important things to do.

We did a slightly longer bike ride than the real course too - 14 miles instead of 13-something. Except, (cringing) I took the "high road" instead of the "low road" which we were supposed to take. The route was not marked with arrows because most of the other participants know their way around, and there were lots of other people on their bikes tooling around Lake Washington. I could have sworn I heard the trainer say "Lake Washington Blvd" so I stayed on it even when it went up and up and up these winding roads (which were beautiful and went under picturesque bridges) instead of staying down on Lakeside. In self defense that I am not an idiot, my route was actually was marked with city-signs saying "bike route", and I wasn't the only one that got lost, but I think I was the only one that got lost who didn't turn around and give up. Fortunately I was prepared because of all the training on hills in Seabeck and I've finally learned how to shift. I still get butterflies whenever I have to stop and get on or off the bike, so that is a great motivation for shifting and making the old thighs stick it out when the going get tough. We laughed about it when we met up again - Deb and Karen had waited for me and wondered where I went. It's a standing joke between us that since Karen and Deb are formerly from New Jersey, they were born direction-impaired, and so I'm usually the navigator... well, I'll bet next time they don't trust me as well - ha!

We did the walk-run as a threesome. Deb and Karen were so nice and stuck with their gimpy friend... and we finished it! whooya -- getting into slippers / flip flops afterwards never felt so good! So next week shouldn't be too bad.. it might be harder because of the crowd and the chaos, but we can do it!

Actually it turns out that we may have over trained a little last week, according to the info we got later from tri-turtle coach Lisa, but no harm-no foul; hopefully we didn't do anything stupid, and if we phase down like Lisa says, and conserve our energy, we should be able to finish next week with smiles just like this week. I was literally singing as we rode our bikes back to the swim transition from the bike transition after the practice tri was over, or would have been singing if I could remember more than the first 3 words of any song other than the theme song from "green acres".

Counting down... two weeks to go...

2007-08-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

It's both scary and exciting to think that two weeks from now I will hopefully be in the midst of a good night's sleep before the Danskin tri.

The Tri-Babe training group started our countdown today with our last brick. (A brick is a bike ride immediately followed by a run.) This week we did a little over 14 miles along a beautiful but hilly route around Seabeck, and then walked/ran 3 miles. Afterwards, when we came back to the table to sign out, we pushed one of the "easy" buttons that our tri-turtle coach Lisa's Mom got her. Gosh those are hilarious - they actually talk!

My mentor, Pam took a photo of me after this week's brick. I usually wear my hair back in a braid but I'm vain enough that I let it fall loose for this photo. It turns out that I am the only one of us who is actually training with this group. Deb and Karen have been training on their own.

So this coming week is the last week of working hard before the race. Next Saturday we have a practice tri - with the full 1/2 mile swim in Wildcat Lake, but a only short bike and a short run/walk. I'm not sure how Lisa defines "short" but I'm guessing that the distances will be about half those of the race, so maybe 6 or 7 miles on the bike and 1.5 or 2 miles on the walk/run?? We'll see.

Those of you are really athletes probably don't think any of this is a big deal, and it probably wouldn't be if I was like you, but I'm not. I'm excited and happy simply to finally have a bike as an adult and to know how to use the gears so that I can get up steep hills. It opens up a whole new world. Last Thursday as I was riding down off the hill at Fort Worden, a group of bicyclists were headed up and they called out to me to turn around and come back up and join them. How cool is that?

I'm even running on part of the walk/run course. Ha! you probably wouldn't call it running, slow jogging is probably a better description. But that's another big deal for me. I skipped the running craze when that hit a couple decades ago, which may be why my knees still work despite all the falling on them when rollerskating on the steeep hill I grew up on.

What a journey this has been - a wonderful, fabulous journey full of life!! And it's just the beginning... next year I hope to do the Danskin tri again, and some other Tris, and also this week I joined a team which will be doing the 3-day "Race for the Cure" in September 2008. That should be relatively easy, it's just a 20 mile each day for 3 days. Just like the tri-babes, who Tri-Harder :), the camraderie should be wonderful.

tootles for now :)

Mahalos

2007-08-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

It's getting close to race time and it's way past time to extend some heart-felt thank yous to the many people who are making this possible.

First, to our tri-turtle coach Lisa and her husband David and her sons Dane and Drake -- who seems to have endless energy, expertise, patience, and good will. You probably have no idea how much we appreciate you. From walking and talking with some of the other newbies, I know there are many of us who are facing challenging personal lives and the Kitsap Tri-Babe experience is making us stronger mentally as well as physically and making it easier to rise above difficult times. There is a tri-turtle triathlon for charity in Kitsap on September 9th. Check out http://www.triturtletri.com/.

Secondly, to the many tri-babe volunteers -- Thank You for donating your time to help create a safe environment for us at the bricks every week by making sure we get across intersections safely. Just knowing that you are there to bail us out if we get into trouble is a tremendous psychological boost. A special thanks for helping with the bike clinic last weekend. It is so nice to know some basic bike mechanics. I think I actually could change a flat tire now.

Thanks to the Evergreen Lutheran Church for letting us use your parking lot every Saturday during training season.

Thanks to Poulsbo Running for the tri-babe discount (this sport is expensive when a person has to start from scratch with gear) and for the great customer service. We really appreciate the way you set us up with running shoes that fit properly and that you carry quality tri-gear and running gear.

Thanks to David and Silverdale Cyclery for printing our shirts at cost! Special thanks to Mike and Sheila for matching me (and many other tribabes) up with bicycles we love, and for your patience and help when we're picking out accessories. I would have to think hard to count all the times I've been in (and I don't want to because it would be way too scary to add up all my receipts) and you've been helpful every time. The new guy, Charlie, is great also, knowledgable and patient.

Last but not least by far, Thank You to Team Survivor Northwest for arranging our registration in the Danskin tri, and to the members of the Port Townsend walking group for your inspiration and support.

the Merry March

2007-06-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

Every Tuesday the Tri-Babe group meets to swim in Wild Cat Lake, which is a nice sized lake in Seabeck. So far I've attended two of these open water swims. The photo to the right is Trixie, the Tri-Babe mascot, dressed in her "big girl pants" so that she is ready for the swim.

The first swim was just hilarious. Lisa emailed us ahead of time and told us to be sure to show up because Dave had a surprise for us. It turned out that she was the surprise! She was spending time in Florida taking care of her mother and came back for a few days. So she started off by apologizing to those of us who thought that our surprise was "cute yoga boy". Apparently one of her colleagues at Expansions Yoga volunteered to help with the swim last year. Our theory is that he thought he would get to be around a bunch of buff women in skimpy swim suits when the reality is that most of us are much more practially clad in wet suits. So "cute yoga boy" turned out to be the eye candy since he showed up dressed in not too much more than just rippling muscles. Maybe that kind of perk is why we have so many veteran tri-babes - ha!

When we checked in for the first swim, we were given a piece of lake grass. Since this is Washington, and it's normally really cold, and Puget Sound isn't exactly a place sane people swim, it's perfectly understandable that a lot of the women aren't comfortable swimming anywhere except a pool. So, after finishing with the cute yoga boy story, this was the next issue Lisa addressed, and her speech was just as hilarious. She started by telling us that fortunately (or unfortunately), when she was young, her parents sent her through a Dale Carnegie course and she learned that whenever she was facing something difficult that the best strategy was to anticipate the worst thing that could happen and prepare for it. So the lake grass was for all of us who thought it was yucky - we were supposed to rub it all over our bodies and get used to it. Then she addressed those of us who are afraid of fish nibbling at our toes by reminding us that no self respecting fish is going even be on the same side of the lake as we are once we start splashing in... and that if she could swim in barracuda infested waters in Florida, we could certainly swim with a few tadpoles.

Once we got all that out of the way, we all learned "the Merry March". This is a method for getting into cold water and dealing with the natural shock our body feels. We sing something like "the saints go marching in" to ourselves while marching straight in up to our navels, splash water on our faces, splash water on our backs, exhale, inhale, and on the next exhale, dive in. We all lined up and filed in like a group of lemmings and it worked!

Wildcat Lake, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

My Mentor!

2007-06-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

Working out with a women's group is wonderful. Everyone is so nice, considerate, and helpful. Plus Lisa's Tri-Babe group is so well organized that they even assign mentors to all the newbies. On the first brick, I saw a couple of the mentor's lists of names, and each one only had about five newbies assigned to her. That's pretty good - there must be a lot of mentors because I'll bet there are at least 50 newbies in the group! It says a lot of nice things about a group that they can attract and keep that kind of involvement.

My mentor is Pam Kiesel, a really nice, inspiring woman. This will be her third Danskin. She is also a long time survivor, so we are a perfect match. She is even a Team Survivor Northwest member and we would have met before the brick if Deb and I had gone to one of the TSNW biking events that was rained out. We could tell it was going to get cancelled so we stayed home and played Deb's old 45s that day because last time we went to a TSNW biking event, we were the only ones who wanted to bike in the drizzle anyhow. This time there was a different, heartier group showed up; they biked even though they got soaked, and Pam was one of them.

During that first brick, Pam stayed with me the entire time - following along, helping me connect with the angel who helped with my gearing, offering tips, encouragement, and helping me stay safe.

Pam also sends encouraging email and is available for questions and moral support. I feel really lucky to have her as a friend. Thank You Pam!

Bricks

2007-06-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

Do you know what "a brick" is? I didn't until I started training for the Danskin Triathlon. A brick is a bicycle ride followed by a run/walk. The name has two meanings. Originally I thought it meant a building block towards the whole sequence of swim, bike, run.... and that is one meaning.... but most people call these workouts bricks because that is how your legs feel when you try to run or walk right after riding your bike.

The Kitsap Tri Babes have met for three bricks so far. These events are really well organized. The routes are marked with pink arrows. There are angels riding along the route in bikes and cars, ready to assist you if you have a problem. You have to sign in and sign out so that they know everyone is accounted for. They even assign you a mentor! It's a really nice, confidence-building atmosphere.

I've done two bricks so far: the 1st and the 3rd, and am getting ready to do another tomorrow morning. Each week gets a little more demanding. The first week was pretty easy, despite needing help from one of the biking angels because I didn't know how to use my gears and actually thought something was wrong with my bike because we were going downhill and I was pedalling and nothing was happening. Yeah, I was in the wrong gear. Go ahead and laugh, you're allowed. I'll laugh with you.

Last week we biked seven miles and ran or walked 1.5 miles. I'm not much of a runner so I usually walk, but I did jog for a little of it. I was really sorry that I missed the previous week when we did six and one because this course was substantially harder. In my defense it was nasty and stormy out the previous week, but I heard that a lot of people attended anyhow. I should have. Live and learn. I was really proud of myself last time because the course started off with a long slope down a hill, which I enjoyed tremendously until I realized that I was going to have to pedal back up that hill and I thought for sure that I'd have to walk the bike. But no. I did have to walk it on paer of the mid section, but I learned a little more about the gearing from that experience, and was able to shift into low and make it back up that hill at the end. I also think that repeating "go" "go" "go" to myself with almost every breath helped. Plus once you get a number of miles away from the starting point, even if you don't pedal back, you still have to get back somehow, and that is a great motivator.

Here's Trixie, the fabulous, hilarious tri-babe mascot in her biking outfit at the first brick.

So far, I'm the only one of us to attend the official tri-babe training sessions. Deb and Karen are training on their own at this stage. I think they'll join us later when the official sessions get challenging enough. Deb biked through about 40 miles of Seabeck the other week with a friend, and is getting ready to do the STP (Seattle to Portland bike) in mid July. Karen just did her own 12 and 2 brick yesterday. So far most of the women attending the regular training sessions are like me, newbies. The word is that the hard bodies start showing up later.

May 20th Rhody Run AAUW Centipede

2007-05-31T23:24:00.000-07:00

A "centipede" is a team of people who compete in a run/walk event as a group. They are attached to each other in some manner and thus all have to move at the same speed. This is a popular entry in the Bay to Breakers race in the San Francisco area. Some people tie themselves together; others use creative constructions. None of these entries actually have 100 legs, at least I don't think so - a 50-person centipede would be hard to coordinate. In our case, there were 12 of us, we had 24 legs, and we had a creative canopy with a banner at the front and a stinger at the tail.

The Jefferson County chapter of AAUW put together the "centipede" for the Rhody Run to raise public awareness of AAUW (the American Association of University Women, in case you didn't know), and the things the group does (promote higher education, particularly for women and girls).

The need to prep for the official start of training for the Danskin triathlon and a desire for comradery inspired me to volunteer to be a pair of legs in this event; and I'm so glad that I did. We had so much fun!

The AAUW Jefferson County Centipede was the first centipede was the first centipede in the history of the Rhody Run and was a real crowd pleaser. Jefferson County had no idea the ladies of AAUW are so hot! When we passed people sometimes Kay and Mary would just hold the banner up and over them. One little kid was cute and shouted "hey, the centipede is eating me!". Several of the young teenagers dodged under us and ran under the canopy for a while. Moms with strollers also enjoyed having a little shade while we went past them, although some of them jogged past us later. It became a game to "beat the centipede".

We never lost hold of the banner despite some wind gusts that threatened to turn us into 12 Mary Poppins! The weather for the Rhody Run was good but it poured most of the afternoon after it finished. Most of the participants in the run actually walk, and we were no exception. We did almost trot a couple times as our head bugs, Mary and Kay, are runners, but the only time I actually ran was when catching up to the group after a quick stop at one of the honey buckets. I thought we made great time - we covered a total distance of about 7.5 miles in an average of 17:40 minutes per mile, and finished in under 2.25 hours.

We're crossing the finish line in the photo above. It's funny but the first half mile was the hardest part for me. By the time we were at the finish line, time had flown by and I felt like I could do several more miles. I think most of the other "legs" felt the same way. There is something about walking with a group that is uplifting.

Afterwards we celebrated with a champagne brunch. Thank you to Kay for opening her home, to Carol for bringing the champagne and other goodies, and to everyone else who brought bagels, fruit, coffee cake, and the other tasty treats. Particularly grateful thanks for being sensitive to my peanut allergy.

The Rhody Run is the last event in the annual Port Townsend Rhododendron festival (a week long series of events including a traditional parade with floats, marching bands, a lawn chair drill team, a pet parade, royal courts, a bike race, fish frys, and other events. The 2007 festival was the 72nd, so it's a well-celebrated part of Jefferson County history.

My only participation was to help hold up the banner and be a pair of legs in the run. Charlene designed and sewed the centipede. Kay and Mary had the hardest job, which was to be the head of the bug, and hold up the front banner. Carol did most of the organization. Other participants were Anita, Celeste A., Celeste D., Danna, Diana, Lynne, and Mary. Rodie and Linnea provided support. I'm not sure who wrote the silly songs about scholarships that we sang; Kay I think. Thank you to Rodie and Celeste A.'s husband for these photos. I hope we do it again next year!

Fort Worden Walks

2007-05-31T23:14:00.000-07:00

We also walk at Fort Worden, which is right next to Port Townsend. These are weekly walks and are how Deb and I met. I am so grateful to Dr. Melanie McGrory for starting the Port Townsend chapter of Team Survivor Northwest, and for sticking it out through the first couple years when the group was so small that sometimes she was the only one who showed up to walk

This photo is of Royce and Ellen on a gorgeous afternoon in May, at the point on the trail we normally take where it starts heading into the woods. Fort Worden has a lot of really tall trees of various types, such as cedars, firs, madrones, maples, and others.

Sometimes we hear eagle talk when we walk.There is a eagle nest in one of the trees next to this old WWI structure. You can tell it's spring by the bright green vegetation!

We usually walk for an hour although some of us do a fast aerobic walk for an hour and then a second slower, chatty walk for an hour. It's easy to walk and talk and lose track of time. Royce took this really cute picture of Ellen and me.

The trail that we follow winds around the old fort which is up on a hill overlooking the Strait of Juan del Fuca. This fort was positioned so that it, and it's companion fort over on Whidbey Island, could shell any Japanese ships which attempted to enter Admiralty Inlet and attach Seattle. It's nice that this old war installation has been turned into a peaceful public park. It's hard to imagine Port Townsend without Fort Worden. Fort Worden is the center of a lot of cultural activities, such as the music concerts and writing workshops sponsored by Centrum.

There is also a Fort Townsend on the other side of town, but that was established during the days when the 1st Nations were independent. It's also a public park now and will be the subject of another blog entry later.

The photo below looks down onto the buildings that used to house the soldiers and the old Fort Worden parade ground, with Admiralty Inlet and part of Whidbey Island in the background. People can rent some of the houses. It seems like it would be a great place for a family reunion. You can enlarge the photos of scenery by clicking on them.

May 5th Dragonslayer

2007-05-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

On Saturday May 5th about 1,000 people met at Green Lake in Seattle to participate in the annual Dragonslayer walk/bike/or trike and raise money and awareness to fight sarcomas, the forgotten cancer. The distance around the lake is approx. 2.8 miles. You can enlarge the photo to the right if you'd like to see a larger picture of part of Green Lake. If you look closely you can see walkers around the far side of the lake. For more info see: http://www.nwsarcoma.org/events.html

Although sarcomas are extremely rare in adults, sarcomas account for fully twenty percent of all cancers in children. If they are lucky and the cancer is caught in time, the kids can survive it, but it is often at the expense of one of their limbs. These kids are incredibly inspiring.

Our team was the leiomyosarcoma team. This year we walked to honor the memory of three wonderful women who crossed over the rainbow bridge in 2006: Anne Marie Dibble, Carol Hund, and Marleen Parker.

Our team leader, Warren and his family, came all the way from Alaska to participate. Warren is awesome and inspiring. Unlike common cancers, such as breast and lung tumors, people with sarcomas are often isolated. This is often compounded by an initial misdiagnoisis. Warren and his family have made it their mission to connect everyone they can find in the northwest so that they can share information and help support each other. Thank You Warren!

Our team won an award for the largest number of participants. In the following photo Warren is trying to talk the team into sharing the award, and passing it around from year to year, and they are trying to talk him into keeping it. I didn't go have pizza with everyone afterwards so I'm not sure who won that discussion.

Trixie the Tri-Babe Mascot

2007-05-13T14:50:00.000-07:00

On the evening of Friday May 4th the Kitsap Tri Babes held a "Meet & Greet" at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds to kick off the 2007 training season. What a wonderful group of women! Many Thanks to Deb for opening this door.

Our coach, Lisa Be Our Tri Turtle, gave us a summary on what to expect from both trainining and the Danskin itself, and made us laugh and groan with some inspirational stories. Her name is a self-given moniker inspired by the fact that she also competes in Ironman class triathalons and at one event, didn't make it over the finish line until approximately 40 seconds before they closed the timing. To fully appreciate that, you have to know that meant she spent 17 hours swimming, biking, and running or walking. We saw people like that when I was part of the kokua crew for the Kona Ironman and I have to tell you, we felt a lot more admiration for them than for the polished group who completed the course around 3pm because the late night finishers have a lot of guts. This is part of her point with her nickname. She says that if she can do it, so can we (although I have to tell you that she looks like she is very good shape)... and that it isn't speed that counts, it's moxie. It was so nice to meet Lisa and I'm really looking foward to working with her.

I wish I brought my camera to the "meet and greet" because up in the front of the room an attractive female manikin was propped up. She had curly short blond hair, was dressed in a bathrobe, and carried a bouquet of pink and white balloons. As part of her introduction, Coach Lisa introduced us to Trixie, the Tri Babe Mascot. Just like us, Trixie is going to go from a couch potato to a triathlete in twelve weeks. During the course of our training, she will gradually shed her bathrobe and undergo a transformation. At some point, Lisa told us that just like us, Trixie will get to put on her "big girl pants" and buck up. I can't wait .

Lisa introduced us to Kelly, the original tri-babe, who was one of the original group to join Lisa when she advertised for workout partners 5+ years ago, and has continued to compete in the Danskin ever since. There must have been 100-150 women in the room and I'm going to guess that about 1/3 to 1/2 are have done a Danskin before.

We also met our support team. Thank You to David Ballou, Dane Ballou, Lynn & Keith Grellner, Teneka Morley-Short, David Miller, Kelly & Craig Cole, Katherine Adams, Corri Olson, Bill Beatty, John Kaiser, Ken Cox, Frank Warner, Pat Mus, and Jim Bleich. I hope I have everyone's name spelled correctly. Lisa said they are the power behind the organization. That night they handed out training schedules, took orders for our t-shirts, and performed miscellaneous functions. One of the first things I had to do was sign a waiver certifying that "I am not an idiot" - LOL, ROF

So starting in June, we meet twice a week - once for an open water swim and once for progressively more difficult bricks (a bike ride followed by a walk/run), which gets it's name from the way your legs feel after riding the bike or else by the fact that it's a building block for the triathalon, depending on how you want to look at it - I'm sure both descriptions are true.

Port Gamble Trail

2007-04-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

This is one of the beautiful trails in the Port Gamble area. Pope & Talbot, a logging and development company, maintains a trail system on their property. These are old logging roads. The public is allowed to walk, hike, and bike ride on these trails.

You can enlarge the photo to the right by clicking on it.

This photo was taken near the area that Pope is creating an interpretative trail which includes an old bear den and an owl tree. Earlier this month we saw a raccoon asleep high up in one of the trees and a mature eagle perched high overhead giving us the eye as we oogled it while walking underneath (with our mouths closed).

Last fall we added a second Team Survivor NW walking group on the west side of Puget Sound. The Port Gamble group meets two Tuesdays a month. Originally this group was a "Survivor Striders" group and only walked about 1 to 1.5 hours. However, as part of training for the Danskin, this has become more of a hike than a walk. Usually we walk briskly in the woods for about 2.5 hour. There is a nice loop which takes us up and down some gentle hills and through some areas that are forested with maples and firs and carpeted with ferns, and with some more open areas that have a lot of shrubs. We haven't stepped off the distance yet, but estimate that we're covering 5 or 6 miles. Today we also brought some small weights (3 and 5 lbs). After we finished walking, Karen led us through a set of exercises and stretches.

Today, April 24th, was forecast to be kinda ugly, rainy and cold. That was probably true on the other side of the Salish Sea, but not for us.

Early in the morning, I checked the radar and the pattern was beautiful - it looked like a water splash, with all the green and yellow areas radiating from a clear, empty center. That nice center was us. All the color / weather activity was over Bellingham and Everett and the rest of the convergence zone. For you non-northwesterners, they call it the convergence zone because the weather systems split when they hit the Olympics. Part of the wind and rain goes south (through Olympia) and part goes north (down the Strait of Juan de Fuca and across Vancouver Island). These halves usually skip over the rainshadow (which is where we live) and converge on the east side of Whidbey and Camano Island, near Everett, in the convergence zone. Bellingham isn't part of the convergence zone, but they don't get protected by the Olympics, so they get a lot of weather.

We had a lot of clouds but we also had nice patches of beautiful blue sky and some sun for our walk. It was a balmy sixty degrees! You know I've acclimated from Hawaii when I can say that sixty degrees is pleasant - ha!

This is Karen and Deb. Deb usually brings her collies, Hunter and Dora. They love to run around and sniff everything. Sometimes they do their own thing and sometimes they try to herd us together when the group is a little bigger and we split into pairs and spread out on the trail. In this photo, you can see a little bit of Hunter's head.

Spring Bicycle Clinic and Kick-Off

2007-04-08T21:40:00.000-07:00

Saturday April 7th turned out to be a great day despite an early morning get up and a lot of drizzle. I had to leave the house about dawn to pick up Deb and make an 8am ferry so we could be at Genesee Park by 9:30, but it was worth it. We met some nice new people, learned a lot about biking and the triathlon training, got to spent time in a new place, and had fun.

Thank You to Monica Strasen & Team Survivor Northwest for arranging the Spring bicycle clinic and Danskin training kickoff. We met our trainer, Kim Brasfield, who showed us her tri suit, answered many of our questions about the race, gave us recommendations for managing the transitions, and helped out with the bicycle clinic.

Annelise Digiacomo, with InFitness led a bicycle safety and basic skills workshop covering safety gear and procedures. Afterwards she put us through biking drills and graciously critiqued our technique despite worsening weather. She set up two lines of cones and had us ride through them single file while she watched. With each pass, she narrowed the width of the lane until we practically had to steer in a straight line to avoid knocking any of the cones over. Then she set up a single line of cones with a couple feet between each cone, demonstrated the proper body position for cornering (your knee should be up on the side you are turning into), and had us attempt to weave in and out of them without knocking any over.

Afterwards the drizzle miraculously stopped so Deb and I took a ride around part of Lake Washington. This was my first day with my new bike! I haven't been on a bike in over 20 years, maybe longer, and most of my biking as an adult was along the strand in Hermosa Beach (Calif.), but riding still felt natural.
Deb hasn't been biking in a few years, but she has a lot more experience than I do. Here she is with her old road bike. She is shopping for a new ultra light weight one for the race. Aren't the blooming trees beautiful! Lake Washington was like glass.

The scenery was just gorgeous - I couldn't resist taking a few photos.

You can enlarge the photo to the right by clicking on it. This is part of the path around Lake Washington.

Genesee Park has a nice circular trail with gentle hills.

Imagine this area with 3,000 women and 3,000 bikes.

This area, directly across from Genesee Park, will be the start of the swim, the first event in the Danskin Women's Triathlon. It looked pretty peaceful Saturday. It will be interesting to see the contrast in August. This is one time it is an advantage to be a cancer survivor, because we will get to start in the 2nd wave, right behind the elite participants. I heard that there are over 30 waves of contestants!

Here's a better view of my new Raleigh Passage 4.0. It's a 24 speed hybrid. It has the same wheel size as a road bike but nice thick tires that are wider than a road bike (but not nearly as wide or rugged as a mountain bike) so it's safer with all the gravel along the side of our rural roads. The seat is a little low in this picture - it should be higher but I'm not used hopping up after starting pedaling yet and I was tired so I lowered it temporarily just for this morning. This bike is also perfect for riding on the packed dirt logging trails that are all over the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas; it was love at first ride. Yes, you can do a triathlon on a bike like this. I obviously won't win with it, but since I'm not the famous Allen, I wanted something practical that I can use and enjoy riding around on.

Look how long my hair is! It's been almost six years since the end of chemo. It felt like it took forever to grow out because I had to keep trimming the bottom off while the top caught up. It's still not as long as it used to be. Ah, vanity - ha!

NW Sarcoma Foundation Dragonslayer Bike, Hike or Trike

2007-04-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

We'd like to call your attention to a type of tumor which is underfunded both in terms of research and patient support: sarcomas. You've probably never even heard of sarcoma. See the video under Resources for a quick introduction to sarcomas.

We are supporting the Northwest Sarcoma Foundation's 2007 Dragonslayer Bike, Hike, or Trike on May 5, 2007 at Green Lake.

For more information about this event, please see http://www.nwsarcoma.org/events.html

For more information about sarcomas, please see http://www.nwsarcoma.org/sarcoma.html

Introduction

2007-04-08T16:15:00.000-07:00

We're the "other" Allen and Gates team - the one that is still working together. In addition to the obvious differences (we're not male, famous, or rich), we're cancer survivors, and we're working hard to stay fit to improve our chances of living long & prospering.

A few weeks ago Deb got the bug to participate in the 2007 Seattle Danskin (August 18 & 19) women's triathlon, and passed it along to a couple more of us. Our group, the Westsound/Port Townsend Team Survivor NW group, is only about twelve women strong as of this writing, but we have four members who plan to participate in the Danskin (Deb, Diane, Kathy, and Karen).

We're reasonably fit (particularly Deb, Kathy, and Karen, I probably spend too much time on the computer) but we're not triathletes, yet. However, Danskin claims that shouldn't stop us - that, with some training and perseverance, we should be able to finish the race. By triathlon standards, this race is an easy one: the swim is approx. a half mile, the bike is 12-13 miles, and the walk/run is approx. 3 miles. Sounds like a walk in the park, eh? :)

Fortunately, we belong to an exercise-focused support group, Team Survivor Northwest, which has a relationship with Danskin, via the national organization, Team Survivor.

Team Survivor's mission is to maximize participation of women cancer survivors in physical activity and fitness programs. Studies have proven that physical activity improves longevity and reduces recurrences on populations in general; it's impossible to predict the future for individuals.

In order to achieve their goals, Team Survivor conducts exercise programs that are free to female cancer survivors, thanks to donations, grants, and partnerships with companies like Danskin. Since we are survivors and TSNW this will be our first race, we were allowed to register late and 99% of the registration fee was waived. That was a good thing because this event is so popular that the sign-ups close almost immediately after they open, so you almost need to have participated before if you are going to sign up via normal channels.

Unfortunately, we live a couple hours from Seattle, so we have a few extra challenges. For example, yesterday I had to leave the house about 6am to get to the first bike clinic, which started at 9:30, and between Deb & I, we spent about $50 on gas and ferry fees. Since I'm not exactly retired, my time doesn't permit doing that very often; so we will only be going to special training events, and are very much looking forward to the day when our group is large enough and/or prosperous enough to have access to the types of programs that are available to members in the greater Seattle area year round, in addition to those related to the triathlon.

Our training will be done partly on our own, partly as a group, occasionally with TSNW; and partly with a Kitsap group that calls themselves the Tri-Babes, has done this before, and has a trainer.

I'm both excited and a little bit trepidatious. This is going to be a great adventure! It's a wonderful excuse to get out and enjoy the unmatchable northwest summer, to stretch our limits and improve our fitness levels, and to really live! This blog will be devoted to our journey. We hope you enjoy it.